Monday, March 2, 2009

Thank you

At last, a front-page lead story favourable to CYF, theChild, Youth & Family service. This much-put-uponagency invariably gets blamed by the media everytime a terrible case of child abuse occurs. No matterhow hard its people work to save children from toxicdomestic situations, fault will somehow be found bythose who think CYF should have done more. Theseare usually cheap shots, in my view. Having as ajournalist seen a little of it for myself, I have nothingbut admiration for the kind of work the agency does,going into private homes and trying to sort out themost dreadful messes. So it’s good to see theDominion Post today telling us that ‘Dozens ofnewborns are being taken from their mothers everyyear because of fears for their safety,’ and that suchcustody orders have doubled in the past five years.That’s awful news in one sense but positive in another:thanks to better awareness among health and socialworkers, potentially abusive situations are beinganticipated before they erupt and lead to the kind ofheadlines with which we’re all too sadly familiar.Remembering the brutal revelations that came out in1992 about the abuse and death of two-year-oldDelcelia Witika I’m tremendously impressed andrelieved to see that as soon as CYF learnt last yearthat Delcelia's mother Tania was pregnant, it got acustody order for the child, and duly took it into careonce it was born. The chief executive of the Ministry ofSocial Development, of which CYF is part, says they’reworking to create an environment in which abuse andneglect will not be tolerated. Absolutely. Thank you.